Haiku Lessons
Outside my window, a blue jay picks up a seed and flies to a branch. A chickadee lights on the porch, its song like spring in dead of winter. Do I love these birds? I could try to cherish them more, withholding seed.
If I do love birds, do I need to love cats less? Usually, birds fly.
On the bathroom floor, two feathers are wet with tears. My cat is not sad. The cat brings me birds. He thinks they are what I need. What I need is spring. Spring is on my mind, not even summer or fall. I want winter gone.
Mornings by the street, I see deer eating young buds. Spring will still blossom.
Snow is heavy now, as heavy as wet firewood. I need both for warmth. In February, bulbs grow underneath the soil. The cat tracks in snow. I forage out back, tramping through snow to find wood. Seasoned logs will burn.
Near the cherry tree, tulips are hibernating, the color of hope.
The poet Basho, in so many words, once said nature precedes art. My time in the woods, woods where I live or farther, gives me words to write. Art makes me wonder. Why does the cat bring me birds? What makes winter spring? I do not eat birds, only chickens neatly plucked. My cat eats cat food.
The sparrow, artless, forages for seed, not meter. The cardinal is red.
Basho’s home burned down, so his friends built another. Snow falls on poets. Rain falls on poets, too, and on roots, seeds, bulbs, life. Snow can turn to rain. But I should not wait for spring to turn the corner. Today is the day.
Tomorrow may come, tomorrow may go away, a bird flying from a cat.
Buson the poet followed Basho’s tradition, beginning his own. To him, it is not the goldfinch that I must watch, but what goldfinch means. Stuck in winter now, waiting for golden feathers, I think far too much. What came first to me, the feather tickling my brain or one the cat brought?
Short of sunshine now, I could take watercolors and paint a tulip.
Issa wrote haiku to house a soul in winter, his words his firewood. I could be like him, both playful and poetic, if I tried harder. I could sweep feathers from the bathroom floor, dry tears, hang bells on my cat. I could throw birdseed far away from the front porch and watch birds in trees.
The music of the pileated woodpecker means more trees will fall.
And what of the birds that neither toil now nor spin? Why do I seek them? Is it company or color I seek the most, harbinger of spring? Why hold out hope now? The fated always happens. Seasons always turn. A rainbow forgets just how much rain has to fall before the sky clears.
Spring forgets winter, just as winter begets spring. How many weeks more?
Credit: Washington County News (VA)
2 February 2011
If I do love birds, do I need to love cats less? Usually, birds fly.
On the bathroom floor, two feathers are wet with tears. My cat is not sad. The cat brings me birds. He thinks they are what I need. What I need is spring. Spring is on my mind, not even summer or fall. I want winter gone.
Mornings by the street, I see deer eating young buds. Spring will still blossom.
Snow is heavy now, as heavy as wet firewood. I need both for warmth. In February, bulbs grow underneath the soil. The cat tracks in snow. I forage out back, tramping through snow to find wood. Seasoned logs will burn.
Near the cherry tree, tulips are hibernating, the color of hope.
The poet Basho, in so many words, once said nature precedes art. My time in the woods, woods where I live or farther, gives me words to write. Art makes me wonder. Why does the cat bring me birds? What makes winter spring? I do not eat birds, only chickens neatly plucked. My cat eats cat food.
The sparrow, artless, forages for seed, not meter. The cardinal is red.
Basho’s home burned down, so his friends built another. Snow falls on poets. Rain falls on poets, too, and on roots, seeds, bulbs, life. Snow can turn to rain. But I should not wait for spring to turn the corner. Today is the day.
Tomorrow may come, tomorrow may go away, a bird flying from a cat.
Buson the poet followed Basho’s tradition, beginning his own. To him, it is not the goldfinch that I must watch, but what goldfinch means. Stuck in winter now, waiting for golden feathers, I think far too much. What came first to me, the feather tickling my brain or one the cat brought?
Short of sunshine now, I could take watercolors and paint a tulip.
Issa wrote haiku to house a soul in winter, his words his firewood. I could be like him, both playful and poetic, if I tried harder. I could sweep feathers from the bathroom floor, dry tears, hang bells on my cat. I could throw birdseed far away from the front porch and watch birds in trees.
The music of the pileated woodpecker means more trees will fall.
And what of the birds that neither toil now nor spin? Why do I seek them? Is it company or color I seek the most, harbinger of spring? Why hold out hope now? The fated always happens. Seasons always turn. A rainbow forgets just how much rain has to fall before the sky clears.
Spring forgets winter, just as winter begets spring. How many weeks more?
Credit: Washington County News (VA)
2 February 2011
posted by Felicia Mitchell | 11:44 AM
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